Plight of neglected education increasing

The results of the Higher Secondary Certificate (HSC) and equivalent examinations for the current year, 2025, have recently been published. The average pass rate across the 11 education boards is 58.83 per cent. More than 1.2 million students took the exams, half of them girls. The pass rate has dropped by 18 per cent compared to last year. The poor results have caused an uproar on social media, as the failure of 41.17 per cent of candidates cannot be acceptable. When out of 1.2 million examinees, around half a million fail, questions are bound to arise.

In 2005, the average pass rate was 59.16 per cent, while in 2004 it was only 47.86 per cent. Despite the low pass rate in 2004, around 150,000 students achieved GPA-5. This year, only 69,097 students did. The Madrasa Board, however, had a much higher pass rate at 75.61 per cent, though it was 93.40 per cent the previous year. In school, we used to get 90–100 marks in ‘Diniyat’ regardless of what we wrote. If SSC and HSC results are taken into account for university admissions, madrasa students will enjoy an undue advantage.

The main reason for the poor results this time is that the answers written in the exam scripts were not up to the passing standard. If the written answers are not satisfactory, how can the examiners award marks? Clearly, students were not attentive to their studies this year and did not take the exams seriously. During the mass uprising, students from schools, colleges, and universities participated in the movement, leading processions and chanting slogans. In July 2024, their daily routine was to take to the streets after waking up. They were fearless even amid gunfire—protesting, performing plays, singing, and dancing to keep the movement alive.

Even after the fall of the Awami League government, they remained immersed in the spirit of the movement. A sense of victory and dominance grew among them, and they began staging mock trials and humiliations of teachers—forcing them out of schools with garlands of shoes. They started believing education was no longer necessary. During the Naxalite movement in West Bengal in the 1960s, Naxalite students too had torn up all their educational certificates and vowed to reject bourgeois education.

In 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, HSC exams in Bangladesh were cancelled. Everyone passed based on JSC and SSC results. The following year, 2021, even under a short syllabus, the pass rate was 95.26 per cent. In 2022, again under a short syllabus due to floods and the pandemic, it was 85.95 per cent. During COVID-19, not only HSC but all school classes implemented an automatic pass system. In 2023, for the first time after the pandemic, full-length exams were held, and 78.64 per cent of students passed. In 2024, after only seven subjects were completed, the remaining exams were cancelled due to the mass movement; marks were awarded through subject mapping based on SSC results, yielding a pass rate of 77.78 per cent.

Even after the fall of the Awami League government, the student demonstrations continued. Repeated assaults on and expulsions of teachers were followed by violent clashes between students of different institutions—Dhaka College, City College, Ideal College, Mahbubur Rahman Mollah College, Suhrawardy College, Kabi Nazrul College, and Titumir College among others. These confrontations were not accidental; they were planned and announced in advance. With all this chaos, there was no time left to study textbooks.

Conservative people in society disapproved of abolishing corporal punishment in schools. They are not few in number, and because of them, even gruesome child abuse in madrasas fails to shake the state. Beating students, tying their limbs, or hanging them from ceiling fans is not considered abnormal here. Because such cruelty is accepted, parents still tell teachers, “The bones are mine, the flesh is yours.” Recently, a child was seen standing on the ledge outside a high-rise window because he could not bear the pressure of madrasa studies. In Western countries, the idea of teaching morality or discipline through punishment is unthinkable. There, no physical or psychological abuse is tolerated, yet students in countries like Japan and Sweden are polite, humble, and creative—and they lead the world in innovation.

Memorisation alone cannot lead to creativity. Children in China and Japan do not just read textbooks; they also perform their daily tasks independently. Posts about such education systems draw thousands of likes and positive comments. During the Awami League era, an effort was made to introduce a new curriculum, but many declared war against it. Any excesses or flaws in that curriculum could have been corrected, but no one tried. Everyone favoured rote learning. In our time, we memorised essays, expansions, and letters from Harlal Roy’s Bangla Grammar and Composition and wrote them identically in exams. Teachers deducted or added marks based on spelling errors or handwriting clarity. Thus, we grew up without creativity—only with the ability to vomit what we memorised.

One of my grandsons graduated in medicine from the University of Cambridge and now practises in the United States. When he was in Year 7, I stayed with his family in London for a few days. One day after school, I saw him busy on the internet. When I asked, he said he was preparing a report for homework on “Why Jerusalem is equally important to Jews, Christians, and Muslims.” The report he wrote in English after online research would challenge even university students in our country.

In our country, primary education receives little attention. Because the foundation is weak, many students lose interest or develop aversion to study. The government provides free textbooks, but no administration has ever addressed child malnutrition. The Awami League government had a plan to provide khichuri for schoolchildren at noon, but bureaucrats sabotaged it—turning it into a project requiring foreign trips to “study” khichuri cooking and distribution.

Even under the interim government, officials continue to travel abroad under project provisions. Dr Muhammad Yunus has formed several reform commissions, but I have not heard of one focused on education. To build a solid educational foundation, competent teachers are essential, yet most teachers now are those who could not secure better jobs elsewhere. The capable ones are demoralised because their salaries and allowances are lower than those of government clerks. The Education Adviser recently rejected the teachers’ demand for pay rises, citing lack of funds.

If there is no money, how will the government increase teachers’ pay? Then from where does the money come for Chief Adviser Dr Muhammad Yunus to make 14 foreign trips in 14 months, or for bureaucrats to travel abroad endlessly under cleverly worded project clauses? How did the Ministry of Public Administration manage to regain a budget for luxury cars for future ministers after the Finance Ministry rejected the proposal?

In 1924, my father, Abdur Rashid Master, passed the Entrance Examination from Feni G.A. Academy School under Calcutta University but showed no interest in taking up a job. In 1926, with help from local landlords and residents of our area, GM Hat, he founded a minor school (up to Class 6) and became its first headmaster. He retired with a salary of 65 taka. I was the youngest of five brothers and two sisters, and our family suffered great hardship. We could study only because we received scholarships and tuition waivers. Not every family could afford that, but education-minded local leaders inspired young men to go door to door collecting handfuls of paddy and rice to support the school.

Today, the link between communities and educational institutions no longer exists, and the government is indifferent. During the Awami League period, the Ministry of Education warned teachers that they would be held responsible if too many students failed. Teachers became clever—they started awarding marks even for wrong answers instead of teaching properly. The ineffective Education Ministry was happy, and teachers escaped blame.

After independence in 1971, in the 1972 examinations, mass cheating was rampant, and the pass rate was high. To restore academic discipline, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman appointed educationist Abul Fazal as Vice-Chancellor of Chittagong University in 1973. That year, the pass rate in the university’s affiliated colleges was only 2 per cent. Bangabandhu expressed his anger, saying, “There is no achievement in passing only two per cent; we need a coordinated effort to ensure 100 per cent pass.”

After Bangabandhu’s assassination, that effort ceased. The short-term interim government too shows little concern for education. Obsessed with guarding against autocracy and fascism, it has spent a tense one and a half years selling dreams. Despite the overall decline, good management and sincere teachers have proven that improvement is possible—RAJUK Uttara Model College achieved a 99.94 per cent pass rate; Shamsul Haque Khan School and College, 99.91 per cent; Notre Dame College, 99.60 per cent; Viqarunnisa Noon School and College, 97.56 per cent; and Ideal School and College, Motijheel, 98.24 per cent. There are many more such colleges. But the good results of affluent students in elite institutions cannot represent the nation’s educational standard. In rural areas, the quality of education is steadily collapsing—more than 200 colleges had not a single student pass.

Zeauddin Ahmed: Former Executive Director, Bangladesh Bank, and former Managing Director, Bangladesh Security Printing Corporation Limited